Chesterfield mall under contract to be sold

Chesterfield Towne Center was built in 1975. (Photo courtesy of Chesterfield Towne Center)

A Chesterfield mall is being passed from one big-time REIT to another.

New York-based Rouse Properties is under contract to buy the 1.2 million-square-foot Chesterfield Towne Center from California’s Macerich, according to presentations to investors published by both REITs. The mall is part of a $292.5 million deal that also includes a shopping center on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Chesterfield Towne Center, built in 1975, produced sales of $361 per square foot at about 92 percent occupancy as of Dec. 31, according to the Macerich presentation.

Read the Macerich presentation. [PDF]

A Saturday walkthrough of the mall showed a vacancy rate of about 10 percent in terms of storefronts. That number does not take into account total square footage taken by each retailer.

Macerich bought Chesterfield Towne Center in 1994 and renovated the property in 2008. The firm offered the Chesterfield shopping center as collateral on a $110 million loan issued by Royal Bank of Scotland in 2012.

Read the Rouse presentation. [PDF]

Macerich has thinned out its portfolio recently, selling eight shopping centers in 2013for $560 million. The company has four malls, including Chesterfield Towne Center, under contract to be sold.

Macerich also owns the Tysons Corner Center in Northern Virginia and the Valley Mall in Harrisonburg. Chesterfield Towne Center would be Rouse Properties’ first Virginia shopping center. Neither company could be reached by press time.

The pending sale was first reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. If and when the deal is finalized, it will be the latest in a run of major retail center deals in the Richmond area.

Australian investment firm QIC in September picked up a 33 percent share of Short Pump Town Center as a part of a 10-property, $2 billion transaction between QIC and Forest City Enterprises. That agreement left Forest City with a 34 percent stake in the center. QIC and local development company Pruitt Associates each claim 33 percent ownership.

Cole Real Estate Investments in 2012 bought Henrico County’s White Oak Village and in June 2013 added Hancock Village in Chesterfield. Those two transactions totaled $95.5 million.